[Fic] "Set a Thief" - Chronicles of Narnia/Naruto, fragment

This is NOT branchandroot's mini-ficlet. It is, instead, the version that failed to work, mostly because it's not actually a response to her prompt. (Naruto and Narnia, Sakura and Susan, the hidden sides, for the record.) This could develop into a reasonable story in its own right, I suspect, but I'd need to come up with a proxy antagonist for Team 7 to fight plus some kind of action/spy plot and resolution thereof, and I don't feel like writing a ten-thousand word fic along those lines. But here is a hint of what that story could have been if I'd worked out those problems and continued.

Summary: In the aftermath of Anvard, Edmund attempts to hire a trio of assassins to guard Susan from potential Calormene retaliation. Susan accepts their contract. (1,250 words)

( Set a Thief )

And that's where I realized I was writing the wrong story, ditched the political intrigue, and went off to start a new fic with a much tighter focus on Susan, Sakura, and their respective personal issues.

wherein Liz remembers why short staffing sucks

Since Lemme-Tell-Ya is off the schedule for the foreseeable future, we are running notably short-staffed. I meant to go in a little early today to compensate for that (and also since Mondays are busy-busy-busy until about 5pm, after which they are dead as a doornail), but Landlord Dude was in the front yard raking leaves as I left my apartment, and we talked about getting the storm window up from the basement sometime in the next week or two, and that killed my little bumper of extra time. Oops. I will try again tomorrow.

The P&K delivery arrived right in the middle of cashup, because of course that was more inconvenient than arriving on Friday. This is Murphy's Law of Deliveries in action. *sigh* Checking it in, pricing the items, and putting them on the shelves became my evening project, because see above in re: Monday evenings being dead time.

Aside from that, we got things done in pretty good order. Some things ran a bit later than they do when we have fuller staffing, but I figured if all else failed, I could just stay until 8:45 or something and finish some back room tasks after I'd locked the doors and closed out the cash register and lotto terminal. I forgot to tell that to Melodrama, though, which in retrospect was a mistake -- she got stressed, and she doesn't react well to stress.

( cut for gossip and stuff )

In other smoke shop news, I don't know my schedule for Wednesday yet! I am picking up my rental car at 10am and hopefully leaving Ithaca by 10:30am -- that is non-negotiable -- but I may or may not be working before that. We are trying to see if Ms. Conviviality can come open the smoke shop, but if she can't, I will work 7-9:30am so that Boss Lady doesn't have to work 7am-8pm. (Sweetheart said we should just close at 6pm that day, which sounds reasonable to me, but I forgot to mention it when Boss Lady dropped by the store this evening on her way home from Elmira.)

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Cascadilla Creek was iced half over for the second day running. Winter sure is arriving hard and fast this year. Tuesday will be cold, Wednesday will be cold and full of water falling from the sky in various forms, and Thursday is currently forecast for a high of 21F. Brrrr!

I'm glad I'll be down in New Jersey for Thanksgiving. :-)